What was the British East India Company (EIC)?

Migration – The British East India Company and Migration, 1600-1874

In this course, Dr Guido van Meersbergen (University of Warwick) explores the role of the British East India Company (EIC) in the migration of people between Britain and India from the 17th to 19th century. In the first lecture, we think about what the EIC was and how it operated. In the second lecture, we think about how the EIC operated in South Asia in the first two centuries of its existence. In the third lecture, we think about how the EIC transformed from a trading company into the governing body of India. Next, we think about the migration of British people to India during this period. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about the migration of Indian people to Britain during this period.

What was the British East India Company (EIC)?

In this lecture, we think about what the British East India Company (EIC) was and how it operated, focusing in particular on: (i) Elizabeth I’s granting of exclusive trading rights to the EIC for regions between the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan in 1600; (ii) the fact that, despite contest and necessary renewal, the trading monopoly with India granted to the EIC stayed in place until 1813; (iii) rights granted to the EIC which enabled it to enact diplomacy and have an army, contributing to its success; (iv) the introduction of small colonial settlements in India by the EIC as early as the mid 17th century; (v) the original goals of the merchants who set up the EIC being to gain exclusive trade of spices from South East Asia; (vi) Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s discovery in 1498 of a route from Europe to Asia around the Cape of Good Hope, at the Southern tip of Africa; (vii) the first arrival of English merchants in India in 1608; (viii) the discovery by English merchants that there was little demand for English products in Asia, but that it was profitable to trade within Asia; (ix) the high demand across Asia for Indian cotton textiles; (x) Surat as the starting point for EIC trade in India; (xi) Mughal supervision of Surat in the early years of EIC trade, ensuring that the EIC did not fortify its factory or trade illegally; (xi) the focusing of EIC trade on India during the 17th century, with the EIC pulling out of other Asian markets; (xii) the EIC’s illegal trade of India-made opium with China during the 19th century, resulting in the First (1839-42) and Second (1856-60) Opium Wars; (xiii) the EIC’s continued loss of trading monopolies in the 19th century until its assets were forced into British Crown property in 1858; (xiv) the EIC’s final dissolution in 1874.